If you think of Tarzan as some half-naked guy swinging from vine to vine in some made-up jungle, you are totally wrong. If you think Tarzan has the – somewhat more exotic – looks of a Johnny Weismuller or those of a dumber-looking Christophe Lambert, you are still wrong. If you imagine Tarzan as a colour cartoon character, you are really off course. So then, who is Tarzan? He is, first and foremost, a husky 100 year-old figure who was born in 1912 by the imaginative pen stroke of a man named Edgar Rice Burroughs. In short, he is a literary character.
It is no secret that he has become a myth. It is also obvious that the cinema and cartoons have made him world-famous. But certain forms of fame can kill! We have forgotten the hero of some forty novels and stories. Therefore it is this hero's life, adventures, loves and character which this book attempts to explore. To put it simply, readers are bound to forget, between these pages, Tarzan's famous cry and the film dialogues that were never said. This book pays tribute to the one and only real Tarzan.

An Honorary Senior Lecturer in Latin Language and Literature at Sorbonne nouvelle (Paris III), Claude Aziza collaborated on the publication by Les Belles Lettres of the following books : Alexandre Dumas' Isaac Laquedem (2005), Mémoires d'Horace (2006), E. G. Bulwer-Lytton's Les Derniers Jours de Pompéi (2007), and Guide de l'Antiquité imaginaire (2008). He also contributed to the publication of L'Histoire et du Monde de la Bible.